be regarded as harbingers of the latter institutions; and, so regarded, they in certain minds acquire an interest beyond that which inherently belongs to them. [Sidenote: RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.] The societies, developed in the way described, attained vigour and prosperity in the middle of King William’s reign, being promoted by the approval of Queen Mary, who took a deep interest in their proceedings. Thirty-nine of them were instituted in London and Westminster. They spread into the midland and western counties; we find them at Nottingham and Gloucester, and we follow them across the Channel to Ireland, to Kilkenny and Drogheda, especially to Dublin, where no less than ten of them arose under the sanction and help of the Bishops and Clergy.[447] Tillotson, Compton, and other Prelates, at an early period looked favourably upon the associations and aided their endeavours; but some at first were shy. Archbishop Sharpe, for example, and other clergymen, both Bishops and Presbyters, frowned upon all movements of the kind, as violations of order and as productive of schism. Amongst the lay promoters of these societies, Robert Nelson becomes conspicuous after the year 1700, when he abandoned the Nonjuring party. Another kind of society, originated about the year 1691--not intended, like the Young Men’s Associations, for personal religious improvement, but for checking public immorality--was formed so as to include Nonconformists. The methods of operation were manifold. The most prominent was to enforce the execution of the laws against vice and profanity; and to stir up people to join in this enforcement, the utmost ingenuity and the most plausible eloquence were employed. An abstract of the statutes against the profanation of the Lord’s-day, drunkenness, swearing and cursing, blasphemy, lewd and disorderly practices, and gaming, was published and circulated, with a list of penalties annexed; and all good subjects were exhorted, on grounds of patriotism and religion, to aid in executing these statutes. Other associations were formed for the same purpose. Persons of eminence, members of Parliament, justices of the peace, and London citizens, constituted one division of the army enlisted in the service of public morals; they chiefly furnished the supplies for carrying on the war. About fifty persons, including tradesmen and others, composed a second band, to promote, by individual efforts, the prosecution of the design. A third detachment embraced constables, who were “to meet to consider of the most effectual way to discharge their oaths, to acquaint one another with the difficulties they met with, to resolve on proper remedies, to divide themselves in the several parts of the city so as to take in the whole to the best advantage for inspecting of disorderly houses, taking up of drunkards, lewd persons, profaners of the Lord’s-day, and swearers out of the streets and markets, and carrying